From the Detroit Free Press:

Gov. Rick Snyder today will announce plans for a 110-mile network of sleek rapid transit buses in metro Detroit, operating within two or three years, that will move people as fast and conveniently as light rail.

A new regional transit authority, made up of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw Counties, will govern the system, paid for, with voter approval, by a $40 increase in vehicle registration fees.

I’ve seen these buses work in Curitiba, Brazil  — at one-eighth the cost of light rail — and I know people will use them here once they get a taste.  Along with planned light rail on Woodward and a functioning city and suburban bus system, they can make mass transit real in southeast Michigan.

Rapid buses will run on dedicated lanes at about 40 m.p.h.

“People just love these buses because they get them where they’re going as fast as light rail,” SMART General Manager John Hertel told me this morning.

Routes, he said, will include a line from downtown Detroit to Metro Airport and on to Ann Arbor. Other lines will run down Woodward and Gratiot. An east-west route in Oakland and Macomb Counties, including M-59, will help link the four-county region.

Capable of signal control, the buses won’t need to stop for lights. Leaders of all four counties have signed off on the plan, which will dovetail with the Woodward Light Rail Project. Rapid buses won’t run on any part of Woodward served by light rail.

After years of transit dead ends, and now deep cuts in city and suburban bus service, Snyder has helped put some gas in the region’s tank. It’s a day to get pumped, but it would be a mistake to forget about the crisis in basic bus service now afflicting the region’s 150,000 daily bus riders.

At any rate, for light rail or rapid transit bus service to work, an adequate and reliable basic bus service must feed them. And none of this can happen without a regional transit authority. Legislation will be introduced soon to create one, and the region must get behind it after more than a decade of failure.

In Curitiba, Brazil, rapid transit buses move people as smoothly as any light rail or subway system I’ve used. Elevated stations allow passengers to pay before boarding, entering buses on the same level, without stepping up or down. Rapid buses look more like rocket ships than conventional buses.

Even people who wouldn’t think of riding a bus now — and, unfortunately, in southeast Michigan there a lot of them — will find these buses sleek and smooth enough to get out of their vehicles and save some chips, at least some of the time.

Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20111026/BLOG2505/111026019/Jeff-Gerritt-Rapid-transit-rolling-our-way

Editorial from the Toronto Star:

Of all the issues endlessly studied without resolution in Canada, high-speed rail (HSR) tops the list.

The latest unreleased HSR study, which was revealed by the Star last week, only confirms that more than 30 years of rosy political promises and large consulting fees have accomplished nothing. Canada remains the only G8 nation that hasn’t taken the first step on the high-speed trail, while even China, Russia, Turkey, Morocco and Uzbekistan have launched HSR projects. By 2025, there will be 43,000 kilometres of high-speed lines worldwide, but none in Canada if we don’t change our ways.

No one should expect that change to come from this $3.4 million study commissioned by the federal, Ontario and Quebec governments. It merely replows ground covered by a joint $6 million Ontario-Quebec government study in 1995, which flowed from a 1991 interprovincial study that consumed another $6 million.

This time around, the recommendation is 200 or 300 km/hour service from Toronto to Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Trois-Rivieres and Quebec, with nothing for southwestern Ontario or across the border to connect with the expanding U.S. rail passenger network. Other cities along the truncated corridor would have their VIA service replaced by buses. Much of the existing passenger infrastructure would be dumped in favour of an all-new Quebec-Toronto “greenfield” system costing $14 billion to $16 billion that wouldn’t carry its first passenger for 15 years.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1071421–high-speed-train-stuck-in-station

From Crain Detroit Business:

A new nonprofit wants to transform Detroit’s logistics assets into an inland port linked by rail to the deepwater facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take advantage of the newest generation of massive cargo ships.

Organizers of the Great Lakes Global Freight Gateway say Halifax is one of just two ports on the East Coast — the other is Newport, Va. — that can handle the “Ultra Post-Panamax” container ships that will ply the seas by 2014.

The group believes it can convince logistics providers, maritime operators and manufacturers that it’s cheaper and faster to ship goods to the Midwest through the Detroit-Halifax link.

“In the end, they all want the lowest price,” said Michael Belzer, an economics professor at Wayne State University and CEO of Great Lakes Global Freight Gateway. “Detroit has never sold itself as an inland port before. It has all the assets.”

Goods would arrive by mega-freighter in Halifax and then be shipped the 1,300 miles to Detroit via Canadian National Railway Co. trains (and CN’s tunnel in Port Huron). From there, they would be offloaded for truck shipping locally and to the Midwest.

Read more: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20111016/SUB01/310169996/new-groups-plan-link-detroit-to-halifax-future-mega-ships#

From the Detroit Free Press:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be in Detroit on Monday (10/17/11)  to talk to political leaders about resolving intractable regional transit problems typified by major cuts announced this week for the suburban bus system.

LaHood’s office wouldn’t confirm details of the discussions, but the subtext is clear: The Obama administration keenly wants metro Detroit’s leaders to set aside differences and create a regional transit network to improve and modernize bus service and pave the way for Woodward Light Rail, the $550-million line proposed with 19 stops from downtown to 8 Mile Road.

The light-rail project won another measure of federal support Thursday as the Transportation Department awarded $2 million to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments for a study on extending the rail line north through Ferndale and Royal Oak to Maple Road in downtown Birmingham. SEMCOG is working with six south Oakland County communities on the study.

LaHood is to meet Monday with Gov. Rick Snyder, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and tri-county executives or their representatives.

The visit will come on the heels of Thursday’s announcement by SMART that the suburban bus system will eliminate weekday service on 15 of its least-used routes, and terminate at Detroit’s border some bus lines that cross into the city. SMART, which has a daily ridership of 40,000, said the cuts take effect Dec. 12.

Both SMART and the Detroit Department of Transportation, with 120,000 daily riders, are battling steep budget cuts. Southeast Michigan leaders have been discussing possible regional management and funding of the bus systems, but significant hurdles — mostly political — remain.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said financial problems are forcing a hard look at consolidation of services, but he’s skeptical of combining bus systems and building rail transit without knowing how to fund them.

“We already have problems enough with our current infrastructure,” said Hackel, who will have representatives at the LaHood meeting.

LaHood in May presented a $200-million grant to the state for faster passenger rail service between Detroit and Chicago. The state has won $350 million in federal grants to buy and upgrade tracks between Dearborn and Kalamazoo, in addition to $25 million for the initial phase of the light-rail project.

Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20111014/NEWS05/110140397/High-level-talks-set-transit?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs